Chapter 8: The Coffee Shop and Ribbon Present

November 12th, 2011 (8:13 am)

"Nicholas are you sure we should be doing this" said Maria. Nicholas simply responded that it would be for 5 minutes as the two children walked to their house's front lawn where the swing set is located. "But didn't Mom and Dad say we were grounded from yesterday's stunt?" asked Maria. Nicholas waves off his sister's concern by saying their parents will be out for 1 hour and that they have some time to go and play on the screen. Nicholas said this is the safer alternative as walking to the park will be too risky. Maria decided to leave at that and go on the swing first while Nicholas went on the lookout just in case their parents came early. The children's parents had a rare car so it was easy to spot ahead so they had time to go back into the house. The sky that morning was glooming dark but with no signs of rain in sight. It was rather windy that day to the point that when Maria was swinging on the swing the swing felt like it was going to break so Maria started to slow down on the swing to prevent it from breaking. After swinging for 5 minutes Maria got off the swing to allow Nicholas to have his turn. It was Maria's turn to go look out for their parents while her brother took his turn swinging on the swing. After 2 minutes, however, Maria got bored looking out for their parents but then she heard chirping from behind her suddenly. The noise was from a robin on a tree branch feeding its babies with a worm. Maria stares at the robin for a while before looking at the street in front of their house. The street across the road was pretty normal but one notable feature was a pathway to a small woods trail. Bushes obscured the pathway so it was hard to see into the trail but made it easier to locate the trail. After Maria got bored from observing the robins she went to check on her brother who was still swinging on the swing. Nicholas asked her if their parents were coming but Maria reassured him that their parents weren't home yet. As she said that her gaze went to the street to check if their parents were coming. The street was quiet with no cars in sight so Maria decided to go talk to her brother to pass the time until it was her time again when she noticed a man in a clown costume exit from the forest trial doing cartwheels to the next street. Nicholas then called out to her to let her know it was her time again so Maria went and took another turn on the swing. Nichols told his sister he was going inside to get something and Maria nodded back. A few seconds Nicholas came barging out the front door of the house and was running towards the mailbox located at the edge of the street before his sister stopped him. "Where are you going now Nick," asked Maria as caught her brother's usual action. Nick explained to Maria that Grandma was sending him a gift in the mail for his birthday next week and he wanted to go check if it came today. "You do know Mom and Dad would know you went outside to get it right," said Maria. "Grandma's gifts are always the best and Mom and Dad probably won't care that much since it's close to the house" responded Nicholas. "Fine Nicholas, but I will go instead to check," said Maria as she grabbed the key from Nicholas's hand. "Now go inside and wait for me," Maria said as she was walking towards the mailbox. The mailbox was located at the edge of the street where a car was parked right next to it. Maria quickly brushed it off as if someone going to get their mail and reached the mailbox. As Maria inserted the key into their mail slot she smelt a weird smell from the car beside her. The smell resembles that of raw meat. Maria looked at the car next to her which had pacts of chicken that filled the right seat. Suddenly a figure emerged from the car's left door and it was the clown from before but he didn't wear a smile like before but looked like he was annoyed. The clown walked to the mailbox with his head down as he grabbed a mail key from his packet. Once the clown was checking his mailbox, Maria looked at the clown to see what he was going to do but he was mainly checking his mailbox. She caught a glance at his name tag which showed the name Shinji The Clown. Maria decided not to keep staring and check her family mailbox. The mailbox was empty so she decided to go back and tell her brother the bad news but suddenly the clown covered her mouth with a rag with chloroform on it. Soon Maria's eyes started to close shut and eventually went completely black. 

10:15 am

"Finally there is cherry yogurt on sale" exclaims Vincent. "Well that was an unexpected sight, especially from you of all people" exclaimed Diego. Vincent pretended he didn't hear that and started to walk away from the area. "Well that's just rude now," said Diego in a soft tone which caught Vincent off guard. Vincent responded with what Diego wanted but Diego simply said he just wanted to check on his pal. "But since you asked why don't we catch up a little bit over coffee" asked Diego. Vincent reluctantly agreed to the situation. After getting the rest of his groceries, Vincent and Diego made their way to the local coffee shop. They brought coffee and then made their way to a table in the shop. Vincent told Diego that he wouldn't stay too long as he had a part-time job letter to attend to. Surprise by the information Diego tried to dig for more info from Vincent but Vincent didn't budge. Diego stopped pushing for more information and got straight to what he wanted to talk about. "Since you were involved in one incident that involved the infamous Ribbon Killer, I thought I give you one clue or thing that I noticed about his killings" explained Diego. Diego planted a map of the town with marker dots on it which appeared to give the image of a ribbon. "Isn't that interesting?" remarked Diego in a confident tone. "Why don't we play a game Vincent" asked Diego. Diego explained that the dots in the map could help predict future targets of the killer. Vincent reminded Diego that the killer hadn't killed in years and there was no proof of him continuing to kill. Diego then pointed to the map and told Vincent to count the dots. Vincent then proceeded to count the dots on the map and noticed there was one more dot than what he expected. Vincent asked why there were 13 dots when there were only 12 confirmed deaths from the killer. "Well one more death was just recorded yesterday" stated Diego. Diego explained that his father owns a storage unit company and his father was thinking of renovating an abandoned unit that hadn't been used in years by an unknown tenant. As Diego had decided to visit his parents yesterday, his dad asked him to clean the abandoned unit of its items. Diego had agreed to do it and went by normally at first until he found a jar with a ribbon attached to it similar to the ribbons found on the ribbon killer's gifts to the victim's family. Diego thought nothing of it at first but also noticed a videotape attached to it. Once he opened the lid he saw that it contained ashes so he closed it. He decided to finish cleaning and throwing out all the garbage except for the jar. He went back to his parent's place and decided to put the attached videotape into a VHS player which played a disturbing video of a girl getting killed. "The girl in the video looked like a 19-year-old college girl who went missing in 2002" explained Diego. "The man in the video resembles the killer's appearance in most of his tapes which was a turtle head with a Santa hat on, a black shirt, black track pants and he was holding a weird-looking cane which had a circle part near the top of the cane" explained Diego. After explaining the situation Diego got up and said Vincent could keep the map before walking away from a shocked Vincent.